Writing should fit its purpose.<p>Simple ideas can be conveyed clearly and concisely.<p>Complex ideas need space to grow, roam, demonstrate, and explain. But more critically (and something Zettlekasten should help with significantly) they require <i>structure</i>. John McFee's description of his use of index cards is among the best (and most concise) explanations of this that I've found.<p>A classic bit of <i>bad</i> writing advice I see, at least for someone trying to express complex thoughts, is the idea that writing only or simply requires adding some fixed number of words per day. Write a uniform 3,000 words per day, and you'll crank out a 250,000 word epic novel in three months. It ... doesn't work like that. It's not that you can't simply keep stringing words together. But eventually that's going to show.<p>Simple structures are simple. A box, or hut, or short program, or simple essay, can be stream of consciousness or happenstance. A more complex structure with interdependencies, relationships, and constraints requires more thought, a framework off of which to hang the parts, and an overall organisation.<p>Short fragments can give you the <i>parts</i> you're looking for, but you'll still need to fit them together. And apply tape, string, and mortar where needed as well.